1S36.J' 



Flora of Courtallum. 



To the arts this Order largely contributes. The Porim tree ( Tkespe* 

 sia, Hibiscus, popuinea) affords an excellent, very close-grained, wood, 

 used by the natives for making cart-wheels and, not unfrequently, by 

 Europeans for gun-stocks. For the latter purpose it is not much inferi- 

 or to walnut, but is not easily procured of sufficient size, owing to the 

 trees being generally hollow or bad in the centre. 



This last defect is, I suspect, mainly attributable to the almost constant 

 practice of propagating it by cuttings from large branches, in place of 

 raising it from seed or small cuttings. In the first case, the branch plant- 

 ed dies and rots out, leaving only the new wood, that has been deposited 

 on its surface in after growth. 



It is a curious fact in vegetable physiology, that many plants, which 

 have been much propagated by cuttings, or otherwise than by seed, seem 

 to lose the power of producing perfect seeds. This is remarkably the 

 case with the plantain, which, in the cultivated state, is never known to 

 ripen its seed, while in the wild, it does so readily. In the same way 

 the Portia has nearly ceased to produce seed in this country, though it 

 always bears abundance of flowers, and looks, in all other respects, heal- 

 thy. This remark, it appears to me, is deserving of attention, as there 

 is reason to fear, if steps are not taken to prevent it, the tree will, ere 

 long, cease to yield useful timber. The Plumieria alba, or Araleepoo, af- 

 fords another still more striking exemplification of this position, as I 

 have not once seen its fruit, although in flower at all seasons, I have no. 

 doubt from the same cause. 



Among the herbaceous Malvaceae, many species produce fine fibres of 

 great tenacity, well fitted, if more care was bestowed on their prepara- 

 tion, to be employed as substitutes for flax and hemp. The Hibiscus 

 cannabinus is more cultivated for the hemp-like fibres of its bark, than, 

 as a pot-herb. These are, now, only made into an inferior kind of cor- 

 dage, or wove into coarse cloth, but, if more carefully prepared, might, 

 I believe, be made into much finer, and more valuable, fabrics. But by 

 far the most valuable genus of the Order is Gossipium, or the cotton, 

 plant, the different species of which are so extensively cultivated in 

 all the four quarters of the globe, on account of the woolly fibres which 

 envelope its seeds. 



There are but few plants, if indeed there is another in the whole ve- 

 getable kingdom, to which mankind is indebted for so many of the com- 

 forts and luxuries of life, as this \ and it is certainly the source, to which 

 Britain, more than to any other, owes her greatness, as a manufacturing 

 and commercial nation. The great demand for cotton, to supply her 

 manufactories, has given a stimulus to every branch of productive indus- 

 try, such as, half a century ago, could scarcely have been supposed pos- 

 sible. These vast establishments now annually consume nearly 130,000 

 tons weight of cotton wool, in the fabrication of all descriptions of piece 



